Perito Moreno and Upsala Glaciers

Once we'd arrived in El Calafate, we spent a day looking around to find the best deal on an excursion to the glaciers. They all seemed pretty much the same, so we went for the cheapest one. Frankly, there is not much to tell. We just looked at a massive block of ice for a few days. The Perito Moreno glacier was quite cool, though. It moves about 2 metres per day, which means you can see entire chunks of it fall off quite regularly. Quite frankly though, there´s only so much time you can spend looking at a glacier before it becomes really boring.

To see the Upsala glacier, we took a boat out on to Lago Argentina (the largest lake in Argentina) and spent the entire day on the boat looking at glaciers. This would have been painfully boring had we not met a couple girls who were willing to play cards with us. I think they were the only people on the boat that were about our age. Everyone here in El Calafate is at least old enough to be out parents. It doesn´t seem to be much of an attraction for younger people like us.

The night life here leaves a lot to be desired as well. We went out last night to the only bar in the village. To be honest, it was quite nice. The only problem is that it was really expensive. El Calafate is mostly made up of tourists, and the prices reflect that very much. Someone told us that it is the most expensive town in all of Argentina, and although I don´t know if it is true, I definitely believe it.

This morning we went horse riding up to Lago Argentina. I think I uploaded a picture of it. The colour of the water is a beautiful turquoise because of the minerals in the glaciers. We had some awesome views of the lake from the horses. They took us up on a hill over looking it, and then through a field at the bottom on the way back. It was my first time on a horse, so it was a bit daunting, but once I realised that this was these were the tamest horses in the world, I loosened up, and really got into it. I was adventurous enough to try a gallop for a bit. Overall, it was a fantastic couple of hours. We then went back to the tour operator´s building and had mate. I´m becoming a bit of a mate fan...

Today we're setting off for El Chalten, which is an even smaller village overrun by even more tourists than El Calafate. Apparently there are some really nice treks to do there. Hopefully that's true. It´s part of the same national park, but it´s in the mountains. We met a woman last night who said she´d just come from there, and spent the last couple of days in the rain. We can only hope that this won´t happen to us.